With Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison heading towards a runoff, Bill White is in excellent position to run the best, most promising statewide campaign of any Texas Democrat in a long, long time. Both elected officials and grassroots activists are rallying around White's campaign, and with continued fundraising efforts and a strong field team in place, he is in excellent position to take down Perry in the fall.

About Author

Currently the Research and Policy Director for Progress Texas and the Texas Research Institute, Phillip Martin writes occasional long-form pieces for BOR that promote focused analysis and insight into Texas politics. Born and raised in Austin, Phillip started working in politics in 2003 and started writing on BOR in the summer of 2005. Phillip has worked for the Texas Democratic Trust, the Texas Legislative Study Group, and now the Progress Texas family. He is a lifelong Houston Astros fan, a loyal Longhorn, and loves swimming at Barton Springs Pool.

A poll released Tuesday found that Gov. Rick Perry has maintained his lead in the race for the Republican nomination for governor, while Wharton activist Debra Medina appears to have cut into U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's support.

In a Rasmussen poll of 538 Texans who say they are likely to vote in the March 2 Republican primary, 44 percent of respondents voiced support for Perry, 29 percent were for Hutchison, 16 percent backed Medina and 11 percent were undecided. The poll, conducted Monday with automated phone calls, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

If it were held Feb. 1And if the election were held Feb. 1, I actually believe that Bill White would have lost. Remember, that was the same day he finally announced a television advertisement. That poll was done without any Bill White tv or significant spending to show for it.

Bill White has time and money to make up ground. Hell, the campaign has not seemed to do a whole lot towards the general election yet, besides laying the ground work.

Now, there are certainly problems with Rasmussen polling. But it's the only polling we've got right now.

She will be overtaken by Medina fairly soon. But I don't think it's because Medina's numbers move up to overtake Kay…but rather that Kay's numbers fall below Medina's.

And most of that support will go back to Rick Perry, who will be over 50% + 1 on March 2.

Meanwhile, I think it's much more likely that the 5-underfunded and mostly-unknown Democrat candidates who are not named White or Shami, will suck away enough votes from both of those front runners to force a run-off.

If Bill White has the moneythen he should start running a real campaign.

Obviously the guy is our best chance to win in November, but I think it's fool's gold to blow off or shuffle his way through the primary when he has a chance to both define himself to Democrats and get folks excited about his candidacy. The clown show on the GOP side is a perfect opportunity to contrast and define White as a sensible alternative. I still talk to Democrats who have little to no idea who White is or whether he's even credible, and are strongly considering crossing over to vote for KBH just to get rid of Perry. If White was campaigning more aggressively and showing the leadership of a standard-bearer, these folks might not feel so despondent about their own party.